


What's Past is Prologue

by hauntedlittledoll



Series: Tumblr Fic War [13]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman Comics, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Random Literary References for the Win, Shakespeare is My Second Language, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedlittledoll/pseuds/hauntedlittledoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for kiragecko — "Stupid angst war: Tim’s lost in the time stream and his family isn’t quite as good as he was at getting him back."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Past is Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiragecko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiragecko/gifts).



> Title taken from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest."

His family will find him.

If Tim is patient, they will find him and he can go home.

So Red Robin was patient.  He was patient throughout Biblical history, and he was patient throughout the Middle Ages, and he might have actually enjoyed the Renaissance.

He got a little impatient in Victorian London.  Tim had always wanted to solve the case of Jack the Ripper, and now he could cross one more impossible thing off his bucket list.

He returned to maintaining the status quo, and he got a job.  He saved lives, and he fought in wars.  He wore military uniforms, wild suits, and leather jackets … because this was temporary.  His family would find him if Tim could just be patient.

Except, now Tim stands at the mouth of what will come to be Crime Alley.  The theater that he will one day call home is awash in lights, and three figures emerge as a gunman on the corner leaves his post.

If Tim is patient, his family will find him … soon, right?

But if Tim acts, Bruce will never need to become the Batman.  Thomas and Martha Wayne’s attempts to save Gotham could still work.  If Tim acts, his mentor will have the life he so richly deserves.

If Tim acts, he could go to the circus and end Tony Zucco’s reign of terror.  He could get Jason’s adoptive mother the medical help that she needs, the money that will give Jason a shot at any Ivy League school in the world.  He could save his parents and Dana.  He could make sure that the Cluemaster goes to jail for good, that David Cain never has the chance to raise Cassandra, that the Joker meets with a much more timely end … and because Tim is Tim, he’ll probably save Damian too.

Not that he thinks it will improve the little demon any.

If Tim acts, his family will never know to look for him, but they will never need him either.  No contest.


End file.
